A brief history of Flames draft weekend trades

No matter who the general manager has been over the past decade, the Calgary Flames love making trades at the National Hockey League draft. The tendency makes sense: all NHL GMs get together in one spot, have a few meals together and, presto!, trades.

Here’s a quick rundown of the last 10 years of Flames trades made on NHL Draft weekend.

The 2008 Draft

Darryl Sutter was busy in 2008. He first sent the Flames’ first rounder (17th overall) and a second round pick in 2009 to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Mike Cammalleri and a second rounder in 2008 (which he used to take Mitch Wahl at 48th overall).

Then he sent away Alex Tanguay and the Flames’ fifth round pick to Montreal for their 2008 first rounder (25th overall, used to take Greg Nemisz) and a second rounder in 2009 (which Sutter subsequently traded at the 2009 trade deadline to get Jordan Leopold).

The 2009 Draft

In his second-last draft as GM, Sutter was busy. He made two fairly standard draft trades – trading down to gain a pick, trading up by packaging picks – and one pretty clever one. He traded down from 20th to 23rd overall, gaining a third round pick in the process; he drafted Tim Erixon in the first round, then packaged the newly-acquired third rounder with Calgary’s fourth round pick to trade up to get Ryan Howse in the third round.

The clever trade involved sending pending free agent Jordan Leopold to Florida with a third round pick in order to get a four day head start on signing Jay Bouwmeester by gaining his rights. It was a smart gamble and the Flames nabbed him long-term before he hit the open market.

The 2010 Draft

The big move here was sending a sixth round pick to the San Jose Sharks for the rights to European goaltender Henrik Karlsson. Considering that most sixth round picks don’t amount to squat, it was a decent roll of the dice.

The 2011 Draft

Hoping to open up enough cap space to re-sign pending free agent Alex Tanguay – the same player the Flames traded away three years prior at the same event – new GM Jay Feaster packaged Robyn Regehr ($4 million AAV), Ales Kotalik ($3 million AAV buried in the minors) and a 2012 second rounder (to sweeten the pot) to Buffalo for Chris Butler and Paul Byron. Buffalo was so excited about the deal their GM flew to Saskatchewan to convince Regehr to waive his no-trade clause.

The funny post-script of all of this is that Feaster was unemployed within a couple seasons and Regehr ended up winning a Stanley Cup a few years later with the Kings before retiring.

The 2012 Draft

Remember when Feaster had to send a 2012 second rounder to Buffalo to get them to eat $7 million of cap space in a trade? Well, Feaster went into the 2012 Draft with an eye towards trading down from 14th overall to get a second rounder back. Buffalo jumped at the chance (again), moving from up from 21st and giving the Flames a chance at getting Mark Jankowski and then Patrick Sieloff in the second round.

The 2013 Draft

Satisfied with his prior two drafts’ worth of trades – or worried he was going to get canned – Feaster made zero trades at this year’s event.

The 2014 Draft

In his first draft as GM, Brad Treliving flipped a third round pick to Chicago for Brandon Bollig. Bollig brought a Cup ring and a cool beard to the team. He finished off his contract in the AHL.

The 2015 Draft

The day before this draft, Treliving packaged the Flames’ first rounder and a pair of seconds, one of which he had acquired by selling off Curtis Glencross, and sent them to Boston for Dougie Hamilton. Then he traded up into the late second round, sending a pair of third rounders to Arizona, to get Oliver Kylington.

The 2016 Draft

At this event, Treliving sent a second rounder and a conditional 2018 second (which wasn’t converted) to St. Louis for Brian Elliott. It served its purpose.

The 2017 Draft

At last year’s draft, the Flames sent a 2018 first rounder, a 2018 second rounder and a 2019 second rounder to the Islanders for Travis Hamonic and a 2019 fourth round pick. While lottery protecting the first rounder might’ve been a better idea that what was done, Hamonic ate a lot of minutes for the Flames over his first season.

All we’re saying is: history suggests that the Flames will make a trade or two over the weekend.

In what world is Parayko better than Hamilton? Also, you traded Backlund, he can’t be the 3C (unless you meant it to be Jankowski at 3C – I don’t get how last season made people believe that Jankowski could take on that role).

I like Parayko’s game better than Dougie’s and think it leads to greater team success.

Parayko is a better fit for the Flames as well as a defensive-first guy is going to stabilize what looks most night’s like a Chinese fire drill hen the puck enters the Flames’ end and the other team attacking.

Parayko also plays a much smarter game than Dougie in that he doesn’t take all those dumb penalties that makes Dougie look both stupid and lazy.

Parayko was also weaned on Alberta beef in God’s Own, not lattes from fashionable coffee houses in Rosetown.

Hoffman traded to San Jose, who flipped him to Florida for a buncha picks. Not bad work by Wilson, getting rid of Boedker’s contract and getting some picks back. Still, you get the feeling that Hoffman’s trade value tanked after news about his wife got out.

I wish we’d stop trading first rounders, it really takes all the fun out of it for the fans. I haven’t looked at single mock draft or know any of the top prospects aside from Dahlin, Tkachuk and Zadina; what’s the point?

Enough about GM of the year candidate Chiarelli. Let’s not forget he was nominated just 1 short yr ago folks. Let’s talk about a GM who was never nominated in Arizona and will never be nominated in Calgary. Here is an short list of reasons why.

– Sells the farm for a 4-6 d man with zero offensive upside. Oh yeah and he can’t defend either.
– Trades for Lazar who had 1 goal. If that wasn’t bad enough. He then resigns him. If that wasn’t bad enough not only did he resign him… but he gave Lazar a raise for NOT producing lol
– Sells the rest of the farm for a 37 yr old goalie who throws his teammates under the bus when they play like crap but says nothing when he does the same.
– More draft picks for a 6-7 d man in stone.
– Still refuses to add team toughness to one of the softest rosters in hockey.
– Hires a proven non winner in Gulu then replaces him with another non winner in Peters.
– Promotes the guy in charge of the farm team who has failed miserably in developing all these high end prospects, that we all heard about for years.

You’re not wrong. Oil & Flames have bad GMs for different, but similar, reasons. Chia is dumb and you know when you listen to him and with the trades he makes. Tre talks a good game, has a great amateur scouting staff to cover up mistakes, and makes bad trades. He also pinched pennies on Johnny & Monny contracts but if the team flounders, that will bite him. Those guys will follow the money to get out of a bad situation.

When on these trash rants, we always forget to mention the amazing contracts Tre has gotten his core players locked into long term. This guy is a young GM who is going to make mistakes as he evolves, but IMO he is doing a stand up job. Calgary is not going to have cap issues going forward because their core is not killing them with bad contracts (I.e. Lucic, Draisaitl).

As for trades: Hamilton = highway robbery; Hamonic = overpay, but mostly because of Brodie and the team underperforming so badly thus moving the picks from late round picks you early – had the team played up to expectations, nobody would be complaining; Smith = fair value for what he provides; Stone = the overpay is the contract, not the trade, and he is still a big, relatively young, rhs defenseman who has trade value.

If you do a deep dive on any GM in the league you will find warts. IMO the only egregious mistake Tre has made, which cannot be negated via trade, is Brouwer — the guy has zero trade value so there is no way Calgary can recoup any of the losses the have incurred with that player/contract. Apart from that, I can live with his mistakes, because he has also had some brilliant wins (Gaudreau contract, Hamilton trade and contract).

The last time the Flames did a goofy blockbuster, we ended up with Stajan and a whole lot of nothing. The time before, we a gaggle of garbage also from TO for Gilly and his Stanley Cup brothers. No, I’ll pass on the snake oil salesman going crazy.

Usually BT is good for a surprise or two at the draft. When the team started to fade in the last 20 games, I truly believe Treliving started to revisit moves and trades he didn’t make at the trade deadline. Or even throughout last season. He probably has a few trades in mind that didn’t even happen at last year’s draft.